Roundup: Abortion Once Again Debated At White House Healthcare Summit

Were you glued to your computer monitor yesterday watching the White House’s Healthcare Summit? If not you probably didn’t notice the glaring lack of women legislators invited. Twenty-two invitees and only four women, one of whom happened to be the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

For 30 years, we’ve had a federal law that says that we’re not going to have taxpayer funding of abortions. We’ve had this debate in the House. It was a very serious debate.

But in the House, the House spoke. And the House upheld the language we have had in law for 30 years, that there will be no taxpayer funding of abortions.

This bill that we have before us, and there was no reference to that issue in your outline, Mr. President, begins — for the first time in 30 years allows for the taxpayer-funding of abortions.

So, Mr. President, what we’ve been saying for a long time is let’s scrap the bill. Let’s start with a clean sheet of paper on those things that we can agree with. Let’s take a step-by-step approach that’ll bring down the cost of health insurance in America, because if we bring down the cost of health insurance, we can expand access.

President Barack Obama didn’t address Boehner’s statement about abortion directly, since it was only one of the many different aspects of the president’s bill he said didn’t like. But Obama did say:

There are so many things that you just said that people on this side would profoundly disagree with — and I would have to say, you know, based on my analysis, just aren’t true — that I think that the conversation would start bogging down pretty quick.

So it was Nancy Pelosi in the closing remarks who took the time to correct the record that, once again, there is no public funding of abortion in the healthcare reform package.

I think it’s really important to note, though, and I want the record to show, because two statements were made here that are not factual in relationship to these bills.

My colleague, Mr. Leader Boehner, the law of the land is there is no public funding of abortion, and there is no public funding of abortion in these bills. And I don’t want our listeners or viewers to get the wrong impression from what you said.

In Other News

The White House Healthcare Summit wasn’t the only legislative debate about abortion that happened yesterday. In Kentucky, after an hour-long hearing, a House committee killed a bill requiring women seeking abortions to get an ultrasound. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports:

A House committee Thursday killed a bill that would have required doctors providing abortions to perform an ultrasound before the procedure and offer the patient a chance to view the images of the fetus.

Senate Bill 38, which passed the Senate Jan. 25, failed in the Health and Welfare Committee on a 7-7 tie vote. It marked the fourth year the measure has passed the Senate but died in a House committee.

The bill also would have required a woman seeking an abortion to get face-to-face counseling at the clinic 24 hours in advance rather than by telephone, as the law now allows.

Meanwhile, up north in Alaska a judge is expected to rule next month on a ballot initiative requiring parental notification for abortion. The Anchorage Daily News reports:

An Anchorage Superior Court judge is expected to have a decision within a month on the wording of an abortion initiative targeted for the August ballot.

The measure would require doctors to notify a parent before a girl under 18 could have an abortion.

The Anchorage Daily News reports lawyers presented arguments Wednesday over whether the initiative is clear about penalties doctors would face.

Attorney Jeff Feldman, representing Planned Parenthood of Alaska, argued the initiative fails to make clear to voters it could land doctors in jail for five years if they don’t track down a parent, verify their identification and personally tell them of the procedure.

Bonus item: The Washington Post has a profile of the lengths one doctor has to go to provide abortion care for women in South Dakota.